Facebook changes mission, says Mark Zuckerberg

The world’s biggest social networking site has changed its mission and it’s founder has issued explanation why.

For a long time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spent dozen of years to boost the communication of our friends in the said online platform.

The FB newest mission is aside, of course, from transforming media and politics by presenting news and opinion — true and fake — to billions of people around the world.

Now, Zuckerberg is acknowledging that connecting people online isn’t enough.

“We used to have a sense that if we could just do those things, then that would make a lot of the things in the world better by themselves,” Zuckerberg told CNN Tech.

“But now we realize that we need to do more too. It’s important to give people a voice, to get a diversity of opinions out there, but on top of that, you also need to do this work of building common ground so that way we can all move forward together.”

The company even has a new mission statement: “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”

Zuckerberg-led Facebook’s move marks the first time the company has overhauled its mission, which had previously been “to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

Zuckerberg believes he has just the tool for the job: Facebook Groups, which are now used by a billion people.

“A lot of what we can do is to help create a more civil and productive debate on some of the bigger issues as well,” Zuckerberg told CNN Tech’s Laurie Segall in Chicago on Wednesday night.

It was his first in-depth interview for television since 2012.

Facebook (FB, Tech30) debuted the new Groups features at the start of its first “Communities Summit” in Chicago. Three hundred Facebook Group administrators from across the country are attending the two-day event to hear speeches from Zuckerberg and other executives, and attend panels on topics like conflict resolution.

The administrators represent the variety of groups that have sprung up on Facebook, including Mormon mothers supporting their gay children, people suffering from rare diseases, and mental health support for veterinarians, who have a surprisingly high rate of suicide.

The new emphasis on Groups is the culmination of months of public appearances and posts by Zuckerberg stressing the importance of community.

Zuckerberg has been actively traveling around the U.S., professional photographer in tow, to meet people from every state.

In a commencement speech at Harvard, Zuckerberg touched on hot-button topics like immigration and inequality.